Recreation Management: What We Should Keep and Add

The 2018 RMS Survey Proposals drop important Actions from the Current Recreation Management Strategy 2010-2030. We discuss what we’d want kept, and propose other useful key projects.

Actions to Retain from Current RMS 2010-2030

All the partner organizations were part of the extensive consultation that produced the existing strategy, which they would have had substantial say in and adoption. The objectives of the existing Strategy are “owned” by definition by the National Park which includes that Strategy as one of its core documents. Whilst it’s true that the Park Authority has limited direct responsibilities and powers, it’s incumbent on them to use their influence on those organizations that do, and there is a legal obligation for those bodies to listen and act accordingly.

One of the reasons that we find that the new proposals are not a substantial improvement over the existing RMS is that it leaves out specified actions which we continue to support. In some instances there are references to these in the survey, but passing or implied inclusion of these actions is insufficient as they should be explicitly included. Here is a non-exhaustive list of actions which should be considered for stated inclusion, with some suggestion for amendment or extension into new projects.

Develop a National Park Ranger Service

5.3 Raising awareness and understanding
5.3.3 Work with the recreation user groups and land managers, to promote responsible behaviour amongst all users that respects the special qualities of the National Park and the needs of others through a range of mechanisms, and especially by:
A.. Face to face contact with co-ordinated ranger services, providing a friendly and knowledgeable presence able to convey consistent messages
5.3.5 Develop a National Park Ranger Service which is responsive to the needs of the Forest as they emerge, and facilitate the co-ordination of existing ranger services within the National Park. Consider establishing a Young Friends of the New Forest Group to involve and engage young people more in the area.

Credible enforcement of any rules developed, or even the existing byelaws, would require an investment in personnel. We would want to see this ambassadorial role extended to include some elements of enforcement.

We cannot necessarily expect either FC Keepers or Rangers, or NPA Rangers to fulfil the role of enforcement. It may be that a new role modelled after the Foreign style “Park Ranger”, that is with some police training and enforcement powers should be considered. There needs to be enough of a perceived enforcement presence, whether directly from beats of such rangers, or the extended eyes and ears of the combined other Rangers/Keepers/Agisters network for Park users to sense that they could be seen or challenged for inappropriate or illegal behaviour. We recognize that this would require funding, but providing this service would shore up any funding plans that require charging which itself would need enforcement to be effective.

Influencing beyond the boundaries of the National Park

5.9 Influencing recreational provision beyond the boundaries of the National Park
5.9.1 Outside the National Park, work in partnership with other Authorities to improve recreational provision that provides for their community needs (thereby helping to relieve pressure on the New Forest Special Area of Conservation). Ensure that recreation provision is at the forefront of planning for major urban expansion within a 20km radius beyond the boundary of the New Forest.
5.9.2 In partnership with neighbouring authorities, actively support their search to identify and implement opportunities for new Country Parks or similar and advocate the inclusion of these aspirations in the local development frameworks and core strategies of neighbouring authorities.

5.9.1 is not indicated in any way by the new proposals. In light of NFDC’s current draft local plan targeting 10,500 houses over 10 years, the commensurate surge in local population using the Forest, and NFDC’s low quality standards for Suitable Alternate Natural Greenspace (proposal to use degraded arable rather than setting a standard to offer land restored to a quality commensurate with the protected habitats for which it is meant to mitigate), this is clearly an important action.

5.9.2 could be construed to have a passing mention as an ambition Objective 4’s statement and glancing mention in Objective 5 Funding, but it is not featured amongst the Actions. Given that infrastructure needs may demand the wholesale destruction of the nearby habitat of Dibden Bay along with greater stress on local transport infrastructure, perhaps it would be reasonable to suggest that the National interest would demand a substantial mitigation which perhaps could include compulsory purchase of sufficient well placed land to fulfil the ambitions for Country Parks that would offset damage and act as preferred recreation sites.

Below we have proposed new projects to extend influence to neighbouring authorities: “Habitat Mitigation Framework for the Forest that is Fit for Purpose” and a “Strategic Regional Development Forum.”

Camping and Parking Infrastructure

5.6 Providing sustainable services and facilities
5.6.1 Undertake a review of recreational and visitor facilities in the National Park.
5.6.3 Manage car parking in the National Park as a means of providing access for people to the New Forest and managing impacts on the most sensitive areas. Overall car parking capacity across the National Park is not anticipated to increase or decrease significantly from existing levels:
A.. Audit car parking provision within the National Park6.4 Camping and caravanning
6.4.1 Audit the provision of camping in the National Park and maintain the unique experience the New Forest offers; sustain the significant contribution it makes to the local economy whilst ensuring that campsite management does not adversely damage the Park’s special qualities.
6.4.2 Work with partners to identify potential alternative sites to which the phased relocation of the more damaging campsites (e.g. Hollands Wood, Longbeech and Denny Wood) might be achieved whilst providing a similar quality of camping experience. It must be recognised the difficulties in finding alternative sites; many issues will have to be taken into consideration, including the local economy, transport links, access to facilities (e.g. villages, shops) and the camping experience.
6.4.3 Work with campsite operators to reduce the environmental footprint and impact of camping and caravanning on sensitive areas to enhance landscape and visitor satisfaction by:
.. preventing the extension of existing and development of new camping and caravan sites
.. restricting the spread of new supporting built facilities
.. ensuring that any built facilities that are provided reflect their surroundings
.. securing more sympathetic conservation management of existing camp sites
.. monitoring the condition and operation of the sites on designated areas.6.4.4 Explore opportunities to develop campsites as substitutes to those displaced from the commonable lands as a valuable form of farm and business diversification in robust locations.
6.4.5 Provide further guidance on the future management of campsites to reduce the dependency on car use, for example, by encouraging campers to leave their cars on site whilst visiting the National Park and continuing to promote alternatives to the private car for travel around the Forest.

5.6.1, 5.6.3 and 6.4.1 Audit of parking and camping provisions and facilities – a very straightforward achievable bit of work, unfortunately not yet done eight years later.

Below we have proposed new projects to address campsite issues: “Bring temporary campsites under a regimen of consistent standards and controls” and “Close Hollands Wood, Denny Wood and Longbeech Campsites”. Both of these would augment the goal in Policy DP18 “enable the removal of pitches from sensitive areas by the relocation of part of a site to a less sensitive area”.

New Forest National Park Core Strategy Policy DP18: Extensions to Holiday Parks and Camp Sites
Extensions to existing holiday parks, touring caravan or camping sites will only be permitted to enable the removal of pitches from sensitive areas by the relocation of part of a site to a less sensitive area adjoining an existing site, providing:

a) there would be overall environmental benefits

b) there would be no increase in the overall site area or site capacity

c) the area where pitches or other facilities are removed from would be fully restored to an appropriate New Forest landscape, and any existing use rights are relinquished.

To be supplanted by almost identical Submission Draft Local Plan 2016-2036 Policy DP47: Holiday Parks and Camp Sites removes the restrictive stipulation “adjoining an existing site”

Possible RMS Projects

This is a non-exhaustive list of possible projects that would be welcome ways of delivering the aspirations which should have been more explicitly spelled out in the survey document.

Research Station for the Forest

This would pool resources to staff and deliver a focus for New Forest research. It would maintain a catalogue/concordance of extant research, coordinate research efforts from academic institutions, quality check citizen science, and encourage research to provide evidentiary base for spatial strategy, recreation and livestock impacts on habitat, climate change or any other key criteria for future decision making.

Habitat Mitigation Framework for the Forest that is Fit for Purpose

Mitigation regimes use formula developed by Natural England for Thames Basin Heaths, which does not scale appropriately to the Forest because a) the Forest is much richer in features and biodiversity at threat and should cost developers more b) the morphology of the Forest is different: Thames Basin Heaths spatially has greater opportunity for alternative spaces, where the Forest, surrounded, creates more of a siege situation (with only one defence to the West at Moors Valley, and plans to the East eternally pipe dreamed).

Strategic regional development Forum

In the past some planning regimes managed on a more regional basis was able to reduce pressure in and around the Forest. Both the promises of the government’s 25 Year Environment Plan and its subsequent upcoming review of National Parks should be an opportunity to put the case again. Recreation pressure on the Forest is directly affected by population proximity, housing targets within and on the borders of the Park. If the park and its borders cannot be afforded a sufficient buffer zone that retains its own green belt with sufficient alternative natural greenspace, then the government’s promise of increased protection to our parks and habitats is hollow. The Draft Action proposals have relegated engagement with other authorities to mitigation (which as already noted is undercooked), housing targets with direct impact on Forest recreation are relevant under Section 62 Duties.

Bring temporary campsites under a regimen of consistent standards and controls

Both these camping projects (see below) could help address the obligation under the 2001 SAC Management plan to relocate three FC Campsites (Five year priority 6.4.2 of RMS 2010). Temporary campsite provision in and around the Forest should provide a consistent minimal standard and be subject to appropriate licensing. This could lead to a Charter, or even a scheme similar to “New Forest Marque” for campsites to assure visitors of a Park led standard of quality, and perhaps, oversight. It may also be appropriate to encourage some small pop-up sites as alternative temporary use of backup land during the peak tourist summer season, which could serve as an additional income for commoning.

Close Hollands Wood, Denny Wood and Longbeech Campsites.

The Natural England’s SAC Management Plan for the New Forest 2001 (page 30, Part 3: General Prescriptions) gave “Unfavourable Declining” condition assessments to Hollands Wood, Denny Wood and Longbeech due to the presence and management of the campsites. The Campsite Survey (New Forest Camp site Baseline Survey: Final Report (Cox, Jonathan: July 2010: Lyndhurst: New Forest Association)) showed these have less than half the canopy they ought. This Authority’s Landscape Action Plan doesn’t even have the word campsite in it, let alone a consideration of their impact. The NPA need to address this remiss approach.

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Beautifully observed phenomenon from our friends across the pond...Have you seen the same?Crown shyness is a naturally occurring phenomenon in some tree species where the uppermost branches in a forest canopy avoid touching one another. The visual effect is striking as it creates clearly defined borders akin to cracks or rivers in the sky when viewed from below.

Although the phenomenon was first observed in the 1920s, scientists have yet to reach a consensus on what causes it.

According to Wikipedia, it might simply be caused by the trees rubbing against one another, although signs also point to more active causes such as a preventative measure against shading (optimizing light exposure for photosynthesis) or even as a deterrent for the spread of harmful insects.

For you die hard consultation fans: our deeply detailed evaluation of all the objectives and actions in this year's Recreation Management Survey, expressed in the way you were not allowed to in the on-line survey.Enjoy! ... See MoreSee Less